Brodie is 6!

6!!!???  I just can't believe it!  Brodie is the coolest kid around.  I always say everyone needs a big brother like Brodie.  He is one of the happiest kids I know and he is so thoughtful of others.  We basically could not live without him!

At 6 years old he has lost a total of 4 teeth.  The two front bottom and the two front top.

I always thought I would hate it when he started to lose his cute little baby teeth, and rightly so when he had a snaggle tooth for a couple weeks, but I gotta say, I love that toothless grin!

This year Valentines Day aka Brodie's Birthday fell on a Saturday so it worked out pretty perfect!  He got to celebrate his class Valentines party first and then we partied on his birthday and were able to celebrate just him.

Here the boys are writing our their Valentines Day cards.  Thoughtful Brodie insisted on buying two boxes of Valentines Day Cards -- Spiderman for the boys and Tinkerbell for the girls.  We tried to tell him that it's ok to give the girls Spiderman cards too, but he wouldn't have it because he knew the girls wouldn't like those cards as much as they would like Tinkerbell cards.  Such a sweet boy!

Brodie also has a great imagination!  His imagination can be a little messy... especially when he thinks he has to pull out all my pots and pans in order to play with some playdoh, but I love watching his creativity.  Here he made a fried egg, which then caught on fire (the orange), and then he made a green hose with water coming out of it to put out the fire.

B really wanted to do laser tag for his birthday so we let him invite two friends to The Craze where we played one game of laser tag.  I had planned on them playing at least 3 games, but the vests were pretty heavy and they were done after the first one.  Which was fine with me!  I then gave them each $2 to play the arcade games and they really loved that!

Once we were done we went and picked up some lunch and headed back to our house where Brodie found a brand new shiny bike waiting for him courtesy of his Papa and Nana!  Very exciting!

I have been so tired lately, so instead of constructing an amazing pinata, I went with the good old tape ball instead.  This is a really fun game.  You basically roll up a whole bunch of goodies into a ball of tape and then you take turns ripping the tape off while the person next to you is rolling two dice.  If the person next to you rolls doubles, you pass the tape ball to the next person.  You continue this until the entire ball is gone and you get to keep any goodies that you pulled off.

Then is was present time!  Brodie got some lego figurines, some monster trucks, a really cool little LCD writing tablet, some bubbles, a glasses straw, a bike jump, and a tony hawk wii.

His favorite - chocolate cake with chocolate frosting!

Over a year ago I gave up on making beautiful cakes.  Cake decorating is just not one of my strong points.  Now I just print off pictures of whatever the theme is, attach it to a couple toothpicks and stick it in the cake.  The kids always seem to be happy with it, so it's all good!  I did do some customizing on this picture though!

Brodie playing Tony Hawk Wii.  This is a really fun game!  Brodie has played it a lot and it's actually kind of a work out!  Perfect for these cold winter months!

Testing out his glasses straw from his sister.

Seriously, what would we do without you Brodie?  Love you to pieces!

Mari is 2!!

Oh how sad!  My baby is a toddler!  This girl.  She is spunky, adorable, explodes our hearts on a daily basis and makes me want to cry at night.  That's right.  She still doesn't sleep through the night.  In fact, I don't think she sleeps at all.  Crazy girl!

Mari had a quiet little birthday this year and it was perfect!

I redid this piece of furniture and turned it into a play kitchen as her big present.  It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but it's really cold here and I don't like tinkering in the garage when it's this cold, so it took a lot longer to finish then I anticipated.  Better late then never, I always say.  She loves cooking us breakfast on it.  Doesn't she just look so sweet?

Yes, she looks sweet, but like I said above, this girl is spunky!

She's also crazy...

Loves to go to church and doesn't even look back when I drop her off at nursery, but who could blame her, they have snacks!  This girl loves snacks!

She also loves babies...

and building block towers...

She LOVES accessories!

And nothing is better then cheese in her world...

Money is exciting...

Horses are her favorite... 

And she is the biggest trouble maker!  She gets into everything, leaving huge messes in her wake...

And she always gets away with it.  Love you little girl!

After Christmas and the New Year

The day after Christmas we piled into the car and headed on our trip to California.  About an hour down the road we got a flat tire and had to make a pit stop for a new one, but other then that, the ride went pretty smooth!

The boys brought their new guns and went to do some target practice in the olive orchard.

Ryker's face cracks me up here!

My grandma went to my mom's house for Christmas, so it was really fun to see them.  My Aunt and Uncle who live in the bay area came up for a day with their two kids as well, so it was fun to get in some family time.

 One of Bo's highlights of the trip was visiting with Joe Lares.  Joe makes duck calls that Bo has become obsessed with.  He's even started his own personal collection.  There has also been some talk of one going on our mantle in a glass case... we'll see.

Brodie had one of his best days ever when he got to go hunting with Allen at his pheasant club and put his new shotgun to use.  He may have shot his first pheasant... there was some friendly fire helping him out, but we'll just say he did.

We also got to visit more grandparents while we were there.  We spent New Years Eve and day with Grandma and Grandpa Scott as well as the Houston/Morrows and the Russel Scott family.  There was a lot of football watching and cousin fun.

On the 2nd we drove down to Oakland to visit with Grandpa Parmelee.  He loves it when we come to visit and we love seeing him.  We stayed a few hours and then left to head home to Idaho.

First we had to make a quick stop at the Jelly Belly factory though!  I was hoping we could take the kids on a tour, but the line was super long, so we just bought some jelly beans, got some hats and then headed on our way.

We also went to In-N-Out while we were there... twice.  I love the restaurants, fast food, and grocery stores Calfornia has to offer!

Once we got back into Idaho though, we had Chik-fil-A.  Bo loves that place.  This was the first time I had been there and I was starting to feel the effects of a cold, so all I got was soup, and it wasn't great.  Too spicy for my liking, but the kids loved the little play area and it was nice for them to get some wiggles out before we drove the rest of the way home.

And the boys settled right back into the snow.  This was the longest my boys have ever played in the snow.  This snow ball fight lasted about an hour and that was after another hour of messing around in the yard.  Don't they know it's cold?

Love our trips, but we come back exhausted!!